"The children of God are so busy! So busy! They are running here and there . . . The Spirit would woo them to draw close to the Lord, to learn to love Him. God would have them love Him with all their hearts and strength, and Jesus Christ is waiting to fill their lives so that naught could gain access to their hearts excepting that which comes from Him.
"Though we give God all else, though we give Him our time, our money, our faculties and members; though we deprive ourselves of all but the bare necessities of life in order that we may impart to Him and to His work, and withal have not learned to love Him and give Him the first place in our hearts and lives, we shall be utterly contemned.
"God has made us for Himself. First, and above all else, He wants our love; and when we give Him our hearts and undivided affections, all else will follow. It depends entirely on how fully our hearts are given to Him."
*****
“The
greatest happiness in life is the conviction that we are loved, loved for
ourselves, or rather loved in spite of ourselves,” writes Jo Petty in her 1962
bestseller, Apples of Gold.
“The door
to the human heart can be opened only from the inside . . . Scientists know
only what loves does. Love, properly applied, could virtually empty our
asylums, our prisons, our hospitals. Love is the touchstone of psychiatric
treatment. Love can be fostered, extended, used to subjugate hate and thus cure
diseases. More and more clearly every day, out of biology, anthropology,
sociology, history, economics, psychology, the plain common sense, the necessary
mandate of survival—that we love our neighbors as ourselves—is being confirmed
and reaffirmed. Christ gave us only one commandment—Love. Now to the laboratory
with love!”
*****
“Always
remember, our ambassadorship is INSIDE of us living out THROUGH us," says Jordan. "It can
NEVER be carried on by our outward man.
“Because
there isn’t any kingdom to bring in, God dumps
all of this stuff on us upfront so right now we can get used to operating in it, working in it,
living in it. We’re operating in His mind and thinking, so that when we get
to heaven, we’ll be ready to get on with the program.
"I
John 2:5 says,[5] But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of
God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.
“Where
obedience exists, it’s the completion and the perfection of love. Love reaches
its completion, it’s filling up, by being obedient to the will of God.
“Love
is never complete without obedience and it’s a verse like that, and a truth
like that, that says, ‘See, that’s what we need today! We need to be obedient
so we need to completely . . . ’ and you take that principal and apply it to us
and pretty soon people go into I John . . .
“I
know grace preachers that use I John and believe I John is the greatest impetus
to Christian living there could ever be and the way they do it is the way the
Baptist brothers do it and it’s that they go into the passage and pull out
verses like this but take a blinder to the other verses and what the passages
really say, and instead they conclude, ‘See, if you really love Him then you need
to obey Him.’
“Now,
is that a true statement? Well, it’s hard to argue with that. But this passage
is saying a WHOLE lot more than that.
“By
the way, you notice verse 5 says, ‘But whoso keepeth
his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected’? It’s perfected by
their obedience, by their keeping the commandments. They’re going to need some
perfected love.
*****
“Look
at I John 4: [17] Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness
in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.
[18] There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
[19] We love him, because he first loved us.
[18] There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
[19] We love him, because he first loved us.
“Tell
me something. If you had perfect love, would it be a benefit for these people?
It'd cast out fear. It gives them boldness in the day of judgment.
“When
the persecutions come on them they understand how; they have a mental attitude
of understanding that gives them the ability to sustain through the problems.
But how did they get their love perfected?
“Their
love is perfected by keeping His Word. Because they kept His Word they had a
mature, complete love; an obedience that came out of that love that gave them
the capacity, when the persecutions came, to endure through them without the
fear, without the paralysis, or the phobia.
*****
“You know what the problem is with these verses in I John? They aren’t the way God deals with us. What are they? They represent performance-based acceptance. That’s another way to say ‘the law’; legalism.
“It's all about how you’re accepted and blessed and get the reward because you served. That’s performance-based acceptance. Performance motivation. Conditional blessings based upon your performance. That’s what the law is. We’re not under the law system, so you know what they won’t do? They won’t motivate you today.
“In the dispensation of grace, Paul says in Galatians 5:18, ‘[18] But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. So if you try to use those verses in I John today, is that the Spirit of God working in you or something else?
“You see, you’ve got an objective standard in your Bible to tell you . . . boy, you never want to get very forgetful of Galatians 5:18. God the Holy Spirit never leads anyone to live under a performance-based system to gain acceptance before God, but your flesh sure will; religion sure will.
*****
*****
“What would the Spirit of God lead you to do? Live under grace. We perform not to get something but because of who we are, and how can we live any other way than consistent with who we are already?
“You see, we get it all dumped on us up-front. Israel had to wait until the end to get it out there. It has to do with the nature of the program with Israel and the nature of the program with us. Israel’s program is a literal, physical, visible earthly program where the blessings are the kingdom. For them, even eternal life is resurrection life in the kingdom. That’s their ultimate blessing and everything else they have is a foretaste of that.
“But you and I . . . you see, God isn’t in the real estate business today. He’s not reclaiming lands, houses and all of that. He’s forming a spiritual body of Believers. What happens to your flesh today—good, bad or indifferent—is not the issue today.
“Your ambassadorship is carried on in your inner man, in your new man. Your old man hasn’t even been saved yet. Your body is still of the earth, earthy. It won’t be redeemed until the Rapture.
“Now you tell me, if God works in my inner man and my outer man isn’t saved yet, which is the issue? See, that’s why all of the physical stuff isn’t really the issue.
"It’s the life that’s in us, and as that life in us lives out through our bodies of flesh, then the flesh gets to do something. Because it’s internally motivated by what God’s doing in our inner man.
“The way Planet Earth is set up to operate is on a performance basis. Go back to Genesis 3 and you see it. So is it any wonder that the reason God would deal this way with the nation of people who He’s ordained and established to reclaim the earth?
"How would you expect Him to expect them to operate? It’s on a performance basis because that’s the realm they’re going to operate in. You and I are going to operate in a different realm and that’s why we get a different kind of a system."
(new article tomorrow)
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